GEOL 1400 THEMES IN GEOLOGY: A GUIDE TO THE END OF …



GEOL 1400 THEMES IN GEOLOGY: NATURAL HAZARDS AND CATASTROPHES

Course Goals:

1. Remove misconceptions regarding global climate change, and catastrophic hazards (earthquake, volcano, tsunami), propagated by the media and popular films.

2. Increase confidence in using simple math skills, and in critically evaluating quantitative data and charts.

3. Change student attitudes toward science

By the end of the class, students should be able to:

(i) predict the various hazards inherent in various plate tectonic settings

(ii) analyze the various feedback mechanisms by which the planet self-regulates climate

(iii) interpret historical records of volcanic and seismic activity

(iv) evaluate the validity of scientific information and arguments presented in the media

Instructor:

Dr. Alan Whittington 312 Geological Sciences whittingtona@missouri.edu

Lecture:

Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3.00 to 4.15 pm, for five weeks. Keller Auditorium, Geology building.

(Usually weeks 6 through 10 or 11 through 15, depending on the semester).

There is no lab or discussion section in this course.

Textbook:

Given the short nature of this course, and the wide range of web resources available for the topics covered, I will not adopt a large expensive textbook. My current choice is:

Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction, by Bill McGuire. Oxford University Press, 152 pages, 2006. ISBN: 978-0-19-280493-8.

[This book was previously published as: A Guide to the End of the World: Everything You Never Wanted to Know, by Bill McGuire. Oxford University Press, 216 pages, 2002. Paperback, ISBN: 9780192804525. This older version is now (June 2006) unavailable from the OUP website.]

Two alternative (or supplemental) books by the same author are:

Firefly Guide to Global Hazards, by Bill McGuire. Firefly Books Ltd, 256 pages, 2004. Paperback, ISBN: 155297815X.

Raging Planet: Quakes and Volcanoes and the Tectonic Threat to Life on Earth, by Bill McGuire. Apple Press, 144 pages, 2002. Softcover, ISBN: 0764119699. Hardcover, ISBN: 1840923598.

Grading:

Credit will come from four homeworks to completed on WebCT (10% each) and one comprehensive lecture exam, consisting of 60 multiple choice questions, to be held in the tenth and final class meeting (60%). No make-ups will be offered.

Important dates:

First day of class Tuesday Month Day 3.00 pm

Last day to drop without a grade* Tuesday Month Day

Last day to withdraw Tuesday Month Day

Final exam Thursday Month Day 3.00 pm

* On withdrawing from a course, you receive a grade of “WP” if passing based on all work assigned up to the date on the withdrawal slip. A grade of "F" is assigned if the student is judged to be failing at the time of the withdrawal and will be calculated into the GPA.

Accommodation of students with disabilities:

If you need accommodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information to share with me, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please inform me immediately. Please see me privately after class, or at my office (312 Geological Sciences).

To request academic accommodations (for example, a note-taker), students must also register with Disability Services, AO38 Brady Commons, 882-4696. It is the campus office responsible for reviewing documentation provided by students requesting academic accommodations, and for accommodations planning in cooperation with students and instructors, as needed and consistent with course requirements. For other MU resources for students with disabilities, click on "Disability Resources" on the MU homepage.

Students who have special conditions as addressed by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and who need any test or course materials to be furnished in an alternative format, should notify the instructor immediately. Reasonable efforts will be made to accommodate the needs of these students. Such students should also register with the Disability Services Office, A038 Brady Commons, phone 882-4696.

MU policy on academic honesty:

Academic honesty is fundamental to the activities and principles of our university. Members of our academic community must be confident that every student's work has been responsibly and honorably acquired, developed, and presented. Any effort on the part of a student to gain an advantage not given to all students (including the asking of an instructor to arbitrarily change a grade) is viewed as dishonest, whether or not that effort is successful. Our academic community regards academic dishonesty as an extremely serious matter, with serious consequences that range from probation, to suspension, to expulsion. If you are ever in doubt about plagiarism, paraphrasing, quoting, or collaboration, consult your course instructor. In the event of a suspected incident of misconduct, I plan to use option B (M-book, page 11)

Course Outline:

|Class |Lecture Topic |Geological Topics |Quantitative Skills |

| 1 Tu |Introduction to |Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism |Scales and Unit conversion |

| |Disasters |Societal impacts and relevance |Scientific Notation |

| | | |Interpreting Graphs and Tables |

| 2 Th |Global Warming and |History of Earth |Scales and Unit conversion Interpreting Graphs and |

| |Freezing |Plate Tectonics |Tables Estimation |

| | | |Homework: Geologic Time |

| 3 Tu |Global Warming and |Greenhouse Effect |Averages |

| |Freezing |Ozone Layer |Interpreting Graphs and Tables Interpreting Box |

| | |Carbon Cycle |Models |

| | |Earth Climate History | |

| 4 Th |Global Warming and |Anthropogenic Effects |Trends and Extrapolation |

| |Freezing |Sea level change |Error Analysis |

| | |Ocean Circulation |Contours (topographic) |

| | |Ice Ages and Snowball Earth |Homework: Resource Footprints |

| | |Uncertainty in Forecasting | |

| 5 Tu |Earthquakes and Tsunamis|Tectonic settings of seismicity |Log scales |

| | |Earthquake focal mechanisms | |

| | |Earthquake magnitude | |

| 6 Th |Earthquakes and Tsunamis|Tsunami generation | |

| | |Earthquake Recurrence Intervals |Homework: New Madrid Seismic Zone Earthquakes |

| 7 Tu |Volcanoes |Tectonic settings of volcanism | |

| | |Types of volcano | |

| | |Eruptive styles | |

| 8 Th |Volcanoes |Volcanic Explosivity Index |Log scales |

| | |Active and Dormant Volcanoes |Homework: Mt Rainier Lahars or VEI calculation |

| | |Volcanic Recurrence Intervals | |

| 9 Tu |Asteroids and Impacts |Solar System Formation |Probability |

| | |Kinetic Energy | |

|10 Th |FINAL EXAM | | |

Background:

This is a 1 credit hour course for non-scientists, with no pre-requisites, that meets ten times over five weeks. It will be taken by students who need only one more hour to satisfy the University’s 9 credit hour science requirement, or who need one more hour to maintain full-time status. These students are typically non-science majors.

The constraints on course design include: limited to ten class meetings, class size typically a full auditorium (349 students), and no TA support. Assessment is therefore by computer-graded multiple choice exam (60 points) and four online homeworks, administered through and graded by WebCT (10 points each). Each of these will include content / comprehension questions (5 points) and quantitative computational questions (5 points). Calculators will be used in the final exam.

The lack of pre-requisites allows some freedom in not being constrained to cover a certain quantity of material. The teaching focus will be split between geological subject matter and quantitative techniques.

Homeworks:

1. Geological Time

Summary: Convert the ages of significant events in geologic history to a time of day, where Earth history is compressed into a 24 hour period.

Quantitative skills: Ratios, fractions, computation, unit conversion.

2. Resource footprints

Adaptation of a resource developed by Christina and others at the NSF-sponsored SERC Quantitative Skills workshop, Carleton College, June 2006.

Summary: Calculate your global footprint (how many acres of productive land do you use for your resource consumption), and the average for various countries, using the web resource:



Quantitative skills: Ratios, fractions, computation.

Compare with the average for the US, the UK, and a developing country of your choice.

How many Earths would be required if everyone had the same footprint as you?

How many people could Earth support if everyone had the same footprint as an average American?

How many biologically productive acres are there on Earth?

What fraction of Earth’s total surface area is this (express as a percentage)?

3. New Madrid Seismic Zone Earthquakes

Summary: TBD

Quantitative skills: Log scales.

4. Volcanic Explosivity Index

Summary: TBD

Quantitative skills: Log scales, ratios, unit conversion.

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